Hit the Home Stretch for Fitness

The Fall 2007 edition of For Your Health, Martin Memorial’s community health magazine, hits mailboxes starting next week. The magazine, which comes out four times a year, provides a wide array of health tips and resources to help Treasure Coast residents stay healthy.


Here’s a preview from the magazine that features tips on how stretching can help you reach your fitness goals, courtesy of Lonee Halbach, a certified personal trainer and program coordinator of group exercise classes at Martin Memorial Treasure Coast Health and Fitness Center.

Aerobic conditioning and strength training are key elements to any fitness program. But many people aren’t aware of the importance of flexibility training and its role in injury prevention. By consistently following a static stretch program, your range of motion can increase, enabling you to move, bend, and reach with greater efficiency (Ute Schwartz, a certified trainer at Martin Memorial Treasure Coast Health and Fitness Center, demonstrates stretching techniques in the picture at left). This increased ability to move with greater ease and fluidity is a key component in injury prevention.

Keep these tips in mind:

• Like any exercise program, start off slow and easy. Begin with three to four days a week, making sure to include all major muscle groups.


• Hold each stretch with an intensity level of one to three on a scale of 10, with light tension.


• Hold each stretch for 10 to 15 seconds. Repeat each stretch two times. Do not bounce.


• As you progress in your stretch program, gradually increase the days, intensity level, duration, and repetition of each stretch. Before you know it, you’ll be walking taller, reaching higher, and moving with greater grace and ease.